The present invention relates to hospital beds and more particularly to therapeutic beds.
Therapeutic beds are used for chronic patients such as paraplegics, patients that are partially or fully paralysed, patients suffering from head injuries or other serious injuries particularly spine injuries. These therapeutic beds are used to either render a patient incapable of voluntary movement or to in some way restrict some other movements. The problem with patients who are confined is that they suffer among other things from constipation, muscular wasting, bone decalcification and bed sores.
One of the best ways of overcoming this problem is a therapeutic hospital bed in which the patient supporting platform is mounted for controlled oscillation or controlled rotation within a bed frame relative to a bed support on which the bed frame is mounted. Generally speaking such a bed has lateral supports for a patient lying on the platform which are provided by upstanding side members detachably secured to the platform.
It has been found that in many cases the support platform must oscillate continuously but not to the full extent of its rotating arc on either side of a vertical axis. For example, where a patient has considerable injuries to one side it may be important that the bed does not oscillate to put too much weight onto that portion of the patient. There is thus a need to provide such a bed in which the arc of oscillation can be controlled.
A further problem arises with such beds in that because the patients are relatively immobile or almost totally immobile that the nurse or sick bay attendant has to perform every operation for the patient. In many treatments it is necessary to raise one or other end of the patient support platform or indeed, to raise the support platform horizontally.
Further, it has been found in practice that it is essential that the drive of the bed be disconnected at certain times. Indeed, this problem has been appreciated and various methods have been proposed for solving it.
Lastly, it has been found that the upstanding side members used to locate a patient often have to be moved and that there is need for an efficient way of disconnecting the lateral or upstanding side members.